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Sunday, 13 August 2017

North Korea on standby - reports

North
Korea Says Army Is "On Standby Waiting For An Order Of Attack"

Global
markets are closed for the weekend, so we will need to wait until
tomorrow evening to see how investors react to the latest
back-and-forth between the North Korean government and President
Donald Trump. In North Korea’s latest salvo in its war of words, a
state-run newspaper declared in an editorial that the country’s
Paektusan army is now “on
standby to launch fire into its [the US’s] mainland, waiting for an
order of final attack."

The
comments follow a Friday report from KBS World Radio, the official
international broadcasting station of South Korea (which is owned by
the Korean Broadcasting System), that "North
Korean authorities have dispatched emergency standby orders to the
leaders of the ruling Workers’ Party committees and civil defense
units."

“North
Korea took its turn Saturday in the country’s escalating,
back-and-fourth with President Trump, with the state-run newspaper
saying leader Kim Jung Un’s revolutionary army is “capable of
fighting any war the U.S. wants.”

The
assertion was made in an editorial that also states the Paektusan
army is now “on the standby to launch fire into its mainland,
waiting for an order of final attack."

The
editorial also argues that the United States ‘finds itself in an
ever worsening dilemma, being thrown into the grip of extreme
security unrest by the DPRK. This is tragicomedy of its own making. …
If the Trump administration does not want the American empire to meet
its tragic doom in its tenure, they had better talk and act
properly.’”

Late
last week, in a response to domestic criticism about Trump’s
bellicose commentary,

the
president said that his rhetoric concerning North Korea -
particularly his now infamous promise to respond with “fire and
fury and…power” if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to
threaten the US - may not have been “tough enough.”

“During
Trump’s phone conversation Friday with Xi, the Chinese leader also
requested that the U.S. and North Korea tone down their recent
rhetoric and avoid actions that could worsen tensions between the two
nations, Chinese Central Television reported.

‘At
present, the relevant parties must maintain restraint and avoid words
and deeds that would exacerbate the tension on the Korean
Peninsula,’ Xi
was quoted as saying.”

As we
noted last night, it
doesn’t look like Xi was able to sweet-talk Trump into once again
delaying an investigation into China’s trade practices that many
expect will lead to an all-out trade war between the world’s two
largest economies. China is North Korea’s only major benefactor,
and is responsible for 90% of the country’s foreign trade.

Trump’s
decision comes despite an IMF warning last month that
“inward-looking” policies could derail a global recovery that has
so far been resilient to raising tensions over trade. We also have
noted the tendency, throughout history, for trade wars to blossom
into the real thing…

Indeed,
it seems that relations between the two world powers are
deteriorating once again even after Trump praised China for signing
off on the latest round of UN Security Council sanctions against the
North – which are expected to reduce North Korea’s exports by
more than $1 billion.

But
despite Xi’s repeated jawboning and half-hearted promises to act,
China has so far been reluctant to take meaningful action to curb
North Korea’s nuclear program. Now any effort would probably be too
little, too late, as the US and Japan now believe the North has
developed a nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside on of its
ICBMs.

This
newfound capability could allow the North to deliver a nuclear
payload to the US mainland – a fact that was not lost on global
markets this week.